Yesterday we went to visit the beautiful medieval town of Todi. It’s located in Umbria, the PROVINCE to the north of Lazio, where Rome is. It’s a wonderful trip filled with historic buildings and churches that ends with a visit to an old Italian manor and a full Italian wedding banquet. Sounds like an exciting trip, right? And it was! Except for when things went wrong.
The buses left from the piazza by the Residence at 8. Driving through the city, our faculty guide Daniela Curioso pointed out some of the interesting sights and fun facts about the city. Everything was going great, the bus was on time and everyone was excited for a day of sight seeing and great food.
Then, our bus pulled on to the high way. Something was definitely wrong. We immediately pulled onto the side of the road and kept slowly moving backwards. It was clear that there was something wrong with the bus, but we weren’t sure what. Finally the driver came and said the gear shift was acting up and that we would have to wait for another bus to come pick us up. Not a problem!
Except we waited for an hour for that bus to come get us. It felt like forever! Thankfully, just when it felt like we would never leave, the bus pulled up and we were on our way! Our whole bus had a pretty good attitude about it, no one was freaking out.
Todi was gorgeous. The views were spectacular, from the top of the hill you could see out over the countryside perfectly.
We ended up rushing to the bus at the end of our time there, hoping not to be that last ones there. But that was because two students on our bus had gotten lost. So we waited for another half hour for them. It was all worth it when we got to the wedding banquet though. The food was wonderful, there was plenty of wine and dessert was amazing.
Being on a trip with other students and not only yourself can be challenging. Especially in this past week, I’ve been trying to meet as many new people as possible and that means going to see landmarks and doing other activities with them. Working with people I’m not very familiar with has been a challenge for me. I tend to be very quick to judge people for things like being late, while I am frequently running behind schedule myself. I’ve been trying to be less stressed out and worried about what’s happening during this trip, and I think today was a big success. Not only was I calm and alright with all the delays and problems that Bus 3 had, but the whole bus was very accommodating and understanding to the issues that inevitably pop up on group trips like this. Even with our limited time in Todi, yesterday was filled with beautiful sights of the Italian countryside and medieval history. It just goes to show you that even when everything is going wrong, a day trip can still be great!